Queen of Hearts
by codependency
Summary: She was their Queen, and they were her kings, even if, in the end, they ended up broken. — Lucy-centric. Seven kisses, and the often tragic love stories that accompany them, as she tries to find love in a cold, dead world. Currently on hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

i am not jk rowling. this fact must be clear to you by now.

warnings: themes of suicide, depression, and possibly self harm run throughout this piece. please don't read this fic if it could be a trigger.

* * *

Queen of Hearts 

.

_Life's too short to even care at all, oh_

_I'm losing my mind, losing my mind, losing control_

-Cough Syrup; Young the Giant

.

Deafening silence filled the house. It whirled around, searching for a victim, searching to someone who would succumb to the everlasting loneliness.

It happened that there was one—a frail girl. To call her a woman would be inaccurate. She wasn't a woman, because she'd never really grown up enough to have that word used to describe her. She never really did grow up, after all. She lay upon her bed, tracing her hand up and down the silken sheets. Being the niece of Harry Potter and daughter of famous Ministry Leader Percy Weasley had its advantages—the silken sheets and vast house were among them.

Lucy tried to blank out what she was feeling, because she didn't want those feelings, not any of them. The thing that hurt the most is that the feeling she was trying to block out was not feeling at all. She felt like she was alone in a wide space, stretching out for miles with no one there but her. She was alone, and she wasn't going to find anyone. She'd screwed up, big time, and there was nothing that could save her. More importantly, there was _no one _that could save her.

There were thoughts that she didn't want to think, thoughts that no one would ever want to think, but thoughts that she couldn't help thinking because of how she was feeling. She pushed the unwanted thoughts from her mind. _No_. She told herself. _No, I won't. _She wouldn't give in. She wouldn't destroy the only thing on earth she had left — her life.

Her emerald green dress was creased from her tossing herself down onto the bed. Some would say that she was showing off her house colour with pride, but Lucy had no pride left, none at all, and so she simply wore them to remind herself of who she was, and those that she'd hurt. Her mascara was smudged from hours upon hours of crying, but she'd stopped. She was simply lying there, her fingers tracing the creases in the silken sheets, trying to block out the feeling of not feeling anything at all.

Loneliness was not something Lucy was good at dealing with. She couldn't stop being lonely any more than she could stop being a Slytherin, any more than Dominique could stop being one of her best friends, any more than Lucy could stop hating Molly. Loneliness invaded her life, invaded her mind and made it so nowhere was safe for her, so that every time she looked around she knew that there was nothing there, and it hurt. It hurt more than she could bear think about.

The thoughts that she didn't want to think kept returning. The emptiness was filling her up, filling her up until she couldn't take it anymore. The loneliness engulfed her, the deafening silence pounded through the house, and she knew she had to do something—_anything—_to make it stop.

She strode through the house, grabbing her clutch bag off the kitchen table as she moved through to the living room. Throwing herself down onto the sofa, she opened her bag, searching for her wand, needing her wand. She opened her bag and rummaged through to the bottom, throwing out the junk in there—lipsticks, condoms, pills—searching through all of it for her wand. She drew it out and gasped. _No_. She briefly remembered the night before, when she'd decided to give up magic. She winced as she recounted herself snapping her wand in two, ignoring the looks from the paparazzi and ordinary witches and wizards, and then ran through the crowd, out of the nightclub and into a taxi. The tears only began to fall when she had fallen safely on her bed, and her only coherent thought was that she hadn't even found a guy to take home with her. She snapped back to the present, looking down at her wand, the phoenix feather poking out of the hawthorn wood, and she tried hard not to cry. She'd been attached to her hawthorn wand; it had really suited her, and as soon as she'd gotten used to using it had been perfect for her.

She remembered the reason she'd originally been searching for her wand. She leant back onto the sofa, exhaling and stopping thinking. Killing herself was rather redundant, she thought. She was only a shell, really, there was nothing left to erase. Yet, she thought there would be some kind of finality in it all, some comfort, knowing that she no longer had to live on, remembering what she'd done, whom she'd hurt and who'd hurt her. It struck her that it sounded selfish, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Besides, nobody else would care, would they?

Remembering hurt, thinking hurt, _living _hurt. She didn't care anymore; she'd given up.

All she really wanted was for the emptiness to end.

.

Often, she wondered where she began to mess it up. Maybe it was messed up from the beginning, maybe for her whole life, Lucy was a time bomb, just ticking away until it was time to blow up. Lucy didn't like that metaphor, because it so heartlessly brushed aside all of the times that she was happy, and yet it made sense, in a way, to compare herself to a ticking time bomb. She couldn't begin to remember where it all went wrong, because so many damned things went wrong, and she could never, ever fix them.

The clock on the mantelpiece was broken, and maybe that was good, because it helped Lucy forget about the ticking time bomb metaphor, and concentrate on the more pressing matters, except she couldn't quite remember what they were, and so she contented herself with not thinking, except, no, it wasn't contentment, or anything of the sort.

Lucy hasn't been content in a long time.

.

Seven envelopes lay in front of Lucy, each with a letter inside and a name marked on them. She'd written them hastily, so the handwriting was messy and almost unreadable. They were an apology, because she was _sorry_. She was sorry, okay? Was that enough for the world? Was that enough for the world to know that she was sorry?

She didn't know. To be quite frank, she didn't care what anyone thought anymore. It was her life, and she could do whatever the hell she wanted to do with it, including throwing it all away.

.

She climbed up onto the chair she'd set up in her closet, her make up recently perfected, her hair smoothed out and brushed. She'd always loved her blonde hair, and she found herself admiring it in her mirror before she climbed up. There were no second thoughts lingering in her head, just a sense of cold, hard finality. _This is it_.

She tried to detach her mind from the task of tying the rope to the beam above her closet, and she closed her eyes for a minute, letting the darkness engulf her. For once, the darkness didn't scare her, and she felt safe in it, safe in the knowledge that she wouldn't be hurting soon. Soon, all the pain would go away, and nobody would have to think of Lucy Weasley anymore, because she would be gone.

Clumsily, she kicked the chair away, kicking away her last anchor to the fading earth. Her last thoughts were not of love, nor of life. She didn't really have any last thoughts, only that she was glad that there was an end.

She wondered if anyone would find her—probably not, she thought. Who would care enough to come to her flat and check on her? Nobody; nobody would.

(She didn't notice him running through the door, calling her name desperately. She was already unconscious as he tried to save her.)

* * *

This is my first Harry Potter multichap in a while, and I'm genuinely really excited about this! This is only a prologue, and there will be 7 chapters, considerably longer than this prologue.

This is for two challenge on HPFC: The Seven Kisses Challenge (run by SonyaWho) and the Sensitive/Controversial Topic Challenge (run by Lolaaaa). My character is Lucy Weasley, obviously, and my topics are suicide, depression & self harm, although I might not include the later.

Thanks to Lucy (WeasleySeeker) my flawless beta! :)

Credit deserves to go to the wonderful Listen (fabricated fantasies) as she has a similar story to this, a Dominique-centric that I suggest you all check out, although I did base this on the Seven Kisses challenge. Credit also deserves to go to Isha (neuers) for doing a Jamesii-centric one along the same lines, which you should also check out. :)

Please don't favourite without a review; I spent ages on this, and I'd love to know what you think! :)

-Middy (keep my issues drawn/ stars fall at midnight)


	2. Lucy&Lorcan

Queen of Hearts

_Lucy**&**Lorcan _

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_I don't even need your love_

_But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough_

-Somebody That I Used To Know; Goyte

.

No matter how solid things seem in the beginning, they're always going to change. Nothing stays, nothing lasts, and anyone who thinks otherwise is, quite frankly, out of their mind. For a Slytherin, Lucy was remarkably naïve, but even she should have noticed that nothing ever lasted, that it was all going to break apart.

She remembers first year, rushing into Hogwarts with a smile upon her face, walking into the Great Hall with her cousin Dominique and the two Scamanders, whom they'd both met on the train.

_"Promise we'll always be friends? No matter what house we're all sorted into?" _

_"Promise." _

They'd promised, because promises can never be broken, right? Promises are meant to be something eternal, something that must be upheld throughout your life, and yet the quartet broke their promise.

They would have all been in Slytherin together, if it hadn't been for Lorcan being sorted into Ravenclaw. That should have been their first clue that it wouldn't work out—Slytherins were never supposed to get along with students from the other houses, no matter what. They believed that it could work, and that is where they first went wrong.

Their pride was their undoing, in the end. Apart from Lorcan, of course, because he always seemed _oh-so-perfect_, and there was never a hint of pride in his manner, he never took the stage for pride, oh no, he took the stage only when he had to, most of the time choosing to hide behind his hardback books and song sheets, which he used to compose the songs he never let anyone see. But Lucy, Dominique and Lysander were at the height of pride, believing that they were God's gift to the world, and, really, that was where it all went wrong.

They really never should have expected it to last. Nothing ever does.

.

Lucy sighs as her practice Charms paper lands on the table in front of her. She looks at the hastily scrawled letter on the front of the paper, and glares at her paper, as if staring at it would change the 'P' into an 'O'. It doesn't, and so Lucy ignores it, and tries to pretend that the grade doesn't bother her. The thing is, she _wants _to pass her OWLs. She doesn't have a clue what she wants to do after Hogwarts, but she knows that she doesn't want to be the next Mundungus Fletcher, or even worse, wind up working at a Muggle fast food chain, or something of the like. She has way too much pride to ever lower herself to those standards, because, even though she might not ever show it, she _did _care about where her life might end up.

"Hey, Luce, what did you get?" Lysander leans backwards on his chair, turning his head around to face her.

"What did I tell you about calling me 'Luce'?" Lucy hisses.

Lysander hesistates for a moment, in mock-thought. "That you wanted me to always call you Luce because you love that nickname?"

Lucy seizes her paper and attempts to hit him over the head with it, but Lysander dodges at the last moment.

"So, what did you get, _Lucy_?" Lysander rephrases it, smirking.

Lucy sighs. "I didn't get a T, if that's what you're asking."

"Damn." Lysander replies. "I was hoping I might have someone to be at the bottom with me."

Lucy laughs, and then Lysander turns back around to face the front as Professor Flitwick calls for attention, and begins lecturing them about the importance of studying for their OWLs. Lucy tunes him out, tapping her quill on the desk, when she notices who was sitting across the room from her. _Lorcan_. She turns away swiftly, and back to Dominique who sits beside her. Lucy knows that she has nothing to do with Lorcan's life now, and she is absolutely fine with it—he doesn't matter to her anymore.

(Damn Lucy Weasley and her pride.)

.

Lorcan was more than just a stereotypical Ravenclaw, although at first glance he might seem exactly that. He tried to tell people that he was so much more than that, but the glasses that he wore seemed as if it were their mission to constantly convince people that he was a class-A nerd. The part of the school that knows he used to be friends with the three most popular Slytherins in his year can hardly believe that Lorcan is who he is now. He sometimes wishes that he could be friends with them again, but it sounds so childish that he dismisses the thought. He has other friends, friends in his own house that are so much better for him. He doesn't need the Weasleys, and he certainly doesn't need his twin brother.

He should forget about their friendship—it was only a first year thing, so why is he always so hung up over it?

.

At Hogwarts, when anything happens, the whole school knows within days, and so Lucy isn't surprised when the rumour that Lysander and Dominique are dating reaches her before they even get a spare moment to tell her themselves. She's a little hurt that they didn't think to tell her, but she doesn't let it show. She expected it anyway, they were constantly flirting, and they were always destined to be the 'it' couple, from the very beginning.

She's not jealous, of course, why would she be? Even if she were jealous, she wouldn't be jealous of Dominique, because she certainly doesn't want to be with Lysander. He's immature, and Lucy has her sights set much higher. She's had boyfriends before—a lot of them—but dating Lysander is the last thing she would ever want to do.

She can't help but feel a little lonely, though. It's not like she couldn't get a guy if she tried, quite the opposite, it's just that with all of the guys she's ever been with, she's never been in love.

.

It's lucky that Albus is in Slytherin, Lucy thinks, because then it's so much easier to sneak into his dorm and steal his invisibility cloak. She's surprised that he's never figured it out before, but then again, he was never the brightest of the Potters. She's glad that the cloak remained for posterity, as she knows the story of the cloak and the objects that joined with it to create the Deathly Hallows, and she's happy that it was never destroyed, lost or hidden away.

The stars are bright, and so Lucy makes her way up to the Astronomy tower, as she wants to watch the stars. They're known as just balls of gas, but Lucy knows—and believes—that they're so much more. They're like Lucy, she thinks, they have labels stuck on them, and most of the time they can do nothing to change those labels. But once in a blue moon, they do disprove their labels, by becoming a shooting star, and showing the world just how bright they are, as they dance and dive through the night, allowing people to make wishes, even if they never come true.

She lies back, wishing that she knew the names of the separate constellations, but they're pretty to look at anyway. Whenever Lucy needs time to think, she makes her way up to the Astronomy tower in the dark, so that she can relax, free of anyone else talking to her, free of judgment, of teachers giving her low grades.

Footsteps approach, stirring Lucy from her daydream, and she sits up, wondering who seeks to disturb her safe haven, her lair. A blonde head of hair approaches, and for a moment she thinks that it's Lysander, before she notices the glasses perched on the end of the boy's nose, and she realises that it's Lorcan.

"Lorcan?" she calls out, making sure that it's him.

He approaches her, looking surprised, as evidently he wasn't expecting to meet her up there. "Lucy?" he asks, "Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me." Lucy tells him, still annoyed at him for disturbing her peace.

He shuffles closer, next to Lucy who has her arms wrapped around her knees, and he sits down next to her, and ignores every instinct of his to get up and leave her by herself. The silence is awkward, both of them wishing to say something but neither of them having the guts to break it, until Lucy speaks up.

"What are you doing, Lorcan?" she asks. "Why are you sitting next to me in the middle of the night when we haven't spoken for years?"

"I don't know." he replies. "I suppose that I miss you, or something."

"Or something?" Lucy repeats, raising an eyebrow.

"It sounded better in my head," he tells her, laughing a little. "I _do _miss you."

Lucy watches him for a moment, watching him stare at the stars, looking at them like he's never seen the sky before. He's entranced by it all, and Lucy finds herself blushing as she watched him watch the stars.

"Why did you ignore me for years?" Lorcan suddenly says. "We were best friends and then… then, nothing."

"I was a bitch." Lucy replies, pausing for a second and then adding another statement. "I still am. Always have been, really."

Lorcan doesn't deny or confirm that, and so they sit in silence for the rest of the night, watching the stars shine, until the sun rises, and without even saying a word, the two of them run back to their respective dorms, praying not to get caught by a teacher or prefect.

The next day, they pass each other in the hallway, and they glance at each other before going their own ways, as if they hadn't spoken since first year.

(It was only a midnight conversation—it didn't mean a thing.)

.

They meet again, and they pretend that it's just a coincidence, that both of them just decided to show up for themselves, and not that they went up hoping that they'd find the other there. Stars are lit up above them, and they sit next to each other, basking in the silence that seems so foreign at a place like Hogwarts. During the night, they're free to be themselves, or free to be someone else, if they wish. In the night, the two of them can laugh together, talk about things that other people would think silly, but within the world of Lucy and Lorcan, no judgment is present, and so they're free to voice their dreams to each other.

Beneath the stars, it's a whole different world, and they are content to just be. In the light of day, their masks are pulled back over their faces, and the façade is kept up for both of them, Lucy posing as the Slytherin who doesn't care, not at all, and Lorcan pretending that he's content to blur in, that he's just a stereotypical Ravenclaw. It's okay to hide behind those masks, because they know that at night, they can be whoever they want to be, even if it's somebody who they would be frowned upon for being, if they flaunted it in the daylight.

The broken friendship is not mentioned, and it seems as if it's for the sake of posterity, but both of them know that it's only so the two of them can continue meeting up, because maybe then they can fix their friendship.

They know that they can only live their friendship behind closed doors—to be seen in public with Lorcan would damage Lucy's reputation.

(It kind of hurts Lorcan that she cares more about her stupid reputation than him.)

.

Lucy finds herself hating Dominique and Lysander more and more as the days go by. They're too self obsessed, too snobbish, too immature, too much of everything she hates.

A part of her brain tells her that it's just that they're not Lorcan, but she ignores it. She isn't obsessed with Lorcan, and she certainly isn't thinking of him during the day, or comparing her friends to him.

Only when she's up on the Astronomy tower, hiding in the secret lair she shares with Lorcan, is she truly free to think. She imprisons her thoughts herself, not allowing herself to think them, because she doesn't think she should think them. When she's with Lorcan, her thoughts are as free as the stars in the sky, and she allows herself to access her true feelings.

"Do you think there's such thing as soulmates?" Lucy asks.

Lorcan turns to face her, wondering why she's asking him of all people that question. He pauses for a moment, allowing himself to think.

"Yes." he replies. "I think there's someone out there that each person is destined to be with. I don't think everyone finds their soulmate. But those who do are lucky. They can feel something _real _with that person. At least, that's what soulmates are to me."

Lucy looks at him curiously. "Do you think I have a soulmate?"

"Of course." he tells her. "Why wouldn't—"

He is cut off by Lucy's lips crashing onto his own, and he's caught by surprise for a moment, before he realises just what is happening, and he kisses her back. It feels right, it feels like the perfect moment, just the two of them on the Astronomy tower, forgetting the rest of Hogwarts, the rest of the world, forgetting every opinion of them that was ever laid down.

They break apart, and they stare at each other for a while, both of them knowing that the other didn't expect the kiss until it happened.

"Wow." Lorcan says.

"Yeah." Lucy replies. "Wow."

They don't speak for the rest of the night; instead, they lie next to each other, trying not to drift off. A few hours before dawn, they rush back off to their dorms, trying to catch a few hours of sleep before the school day ahead of them.

**. **

"What is this, Lucy?" Lorcan asks one night, a few months later, as Lucy rests her head on his shoulder.

It's obvious what the 'this' he refers to is, and so Lucy is quiet for a moment, contemplating the question.

"What do you want me to say?" she says coldly.

"Nobody knows about us," he says. "You don't look like you ever want anyone to know. Is this all we are? On the Astronomy tower, is that the only time we can be together? The only time we can be _free_?"

He gets used to the silence for a while when Lucy doesn't reply, and after a while he looks up, and is shocked to see a lone tear rolling down her cheek. He raises a hand to her face awkwardly, intending to wipe it away for her, but Lucy pushes his hand away, and opens her mouth as if she's going to speak, but then closes it again.

"I'm sorry." Lorcan tells her. "I shouldn't have said all that."

"No." Lucy replies. "You had every right to say that. I just… I don't know."

"I shouldn't have pushed it." Lorcan says.

"Can I have a while to think?" Lucy asks.

"Yeah." Lorcan tells her. "Anyway, I plan on getting some sleep tonight. Night."

He leaves. Even as a Ravenclaw, he still has too much pride. He knows that he can't stay in this relationship much longer, if Lucy won't be with him and all of him.

**. **

Lucy has always loved azaleas. They reside in the garden at the Burrow, and she also finds them around Shell Cottage, and at her own home. They're bright, and fragrant, and they're beautiful. Beauty is something Lucy prizes highly, whether it's the beauty of a plant, or of the stars gleaming in the sky, or words laid across a page in a way that makes the sky stare down, or even in herself. When she can find beauty in herself, Lucy is happy.

Maybe it's time to take the stage, and shine a little brighter. She's always shone, but she's beginning to realise that she's faded into the background for much too long. She wonders if Lorcan could ever take the stage with her, and then begins to realise her selfishness. Being with Lorcan would mean her popularity going down, and Lucy doesn't know if she's prepared for that, to be exposed to everyone in Hogwarts without a reputation to grant her safety from cruel words.

She needs time, she decides. But the days left in fifth year are running out, and she's not quite sure how she's going to pass her OWLs, let alone make a decision where her loyalty lies—with her popularity, or with Lorcan.

(It's just so damn confusing when her head and her heart tell her two different things.)

**. **

"Do you think you'd ever travel the world?" Lucy asks one night, as she carries on delaying answering Lorcan's question, and so she asks questions of her own.

"I suppose." Lorcan replies. "It depends who I traveled with."

"Sometimes I just want to get out of here, y'know?" Lucy tells him. "Just get out of Hogwarts, jump on a train, jump on a plane, and then just see where it takes me. And then I want to be with the person I love, in a place where nothing matters but the sky, and the stars, and that one person."

Lorcan smiles at her, and begins to regret not taking the bottle of firewhiskey away from Lucy, when she told him she'd smuggled it in to Hogwarts.

"I think you're a little drunk, Lucy," he tells her. "Slow down on the firewhiskey, yeah?"

"No, I'm not. I'm seeing everything clearer. And I want to make a difference, you know? I want to stand for something, I want to _be _something and nothing and everything in all one moment. And I want to be in love."

"Nothing you're saying is making any sense!" Lorcan laughs.

"It doesn't have to make sense!" she exclaims. "_Love_ doesn't make sense!"

Lorcan sighs, and wraps his arm around Lucy, worried she's going to do something stupid and fall over the edge, and besides the fact that he'd have a lot of explaining to do, he really cares about her. Maybe he even loves her. He's not sure. Love is over-analysed, Lorcan thinks. People spend too much time thinking about whether or not they love someone, and not enough time spending time with the person they may or may not love. At the end of the day, love is just another word, just four letters put together to signify something that is too great, too magnificent to ever be tied down by such a simple thing as a word.

It occurs to Lorcan that maybe he's over-analysing love himself. He's slipped back into stereotypical Ravenclaw mode, and that bothers him, more than it should. He felt like a different person when he was with Lucy, but he's slipping back into who he was before, and he's not entirely sure who the 'real' Lorcan is, or if there even is a 'real' Lorcan. Maybe he hasn't found himself yet, and he's still slipping into different personas, trying to find one that fits him perfectly, but never quite succeeding.

Is he even in love with Lucy? More importantly, is she even in love with him? He begins to doubt things, because he's a Ravenclaw, that's what he does. He begins to wonder about his question again, but he's reluctant to bring it up. He tells himself that Lucy will answer it in her own time, and maybe he's okay with their relationship staying the way it is for a while.

(His pride is taking over; the fact that he's not good enough for Lucy is just too much.)

**. **

Lucy's birthday swings around within a few weeks, and Lorcan notices that she spends less and less time on the Astronomy Tower with him. Nights go by in which she doesn't come up at all, yet Lorcan waits for her, wishing that she'd come and keep him company.

She meets him here, a few nights before her birthday, and they sit in silence for almost all of the night, barely acknowledging the others existence, merely by Lorcan's fingers tracing circles on Lucy's palm, and whispered thoughts of the beauty of the world they live in. It's halcyon and serene, and yet there's something that doesn't seem quite right to Lorcan, as Lucy sits beside him, allowing him to hold her hand, and murmur his observations about the world—something seems wrong.

The question of whether she cares about him is forgotten for the night. Of course, it's in the front of Lorcan's mind wherever he is, but he's scared to push it, scared to find out her answer, knowing that it could change—would change—everything. And so he waits, even knowing that the short moments of salvation will mean nothing when the stars no longer shine silver, and their nights together will be gone.

It's all over again, and Lorcan wonders if it could ever be any different. Could they ever be anything more than the starry night sky? Could there ever be a day where they don't slip off their mask the moment the sun rises? It scares him that he doesn't quite know what could happen, if Lucy could love him in the daylight as much as she does on the Astronomy Tower.

(He's too much of a coward to find out.)

.

Sounds of a party reach Lorcan on the Astronomy tower, and with a twinge of betrayal, he realises what is happening. It's June the 10th, Lucy's birthday, and she's partying in the Slytherin common room, and he hasn't been invited.

They often say that it's the smallest thing that ends it—the straw that broke the camels back—but to Lorcan, the fact that she's celebrating her sixteenth birthday without him is one of the huge things that causes something to end, and he's sure that he's ending it.

Sleep deprived, he makes his way back to his dormitory, deciding to end it tomorrow.

He doesn't sleep a wink.

(When the party ends, Lucy doesn't either.)

.

Walking through the corridors, Lorcan begins to have second thoughts about his plan of action. It seems almost too Slytherin for him, the nerdy boy in Ravenclaw. He's never told anyone that he was nearly sorted into Slytherin, and back in first year he used to wish that he'd made the choice of Slytherin. He curses that he was sorted first out of the quartet that he made with his twin and the two Weasley girls to be sorted. Maybe if he'd been the last to have been sorted he'd have chosen Slytherin, and he'd be sauntering through the corridors with his twin and the Weasley girls, at the top of the social ladder. That wasn't how it had all worked out, though, and there is nothing he could do to change it.

He spots Lucy walking down the hallway, chatting away to Lysander and Dominique about the night before, her two friends holding hands as they walk.

"Hey, I'd like a word, Lucy." he says, stepping in front of her before she can walk past him.

She stares at him, as though she feels betrayed, and Lorcan resists the urge to laugh—he's the one that's been betrayed here. He hates it when his Slytherin side shows through; it reminds him of who he could've been, and who his ex-friends are, and it just brings up things that he never wants to remember.

"Lorcan." she hisses. "I haven't seen you in five years."

His anger begins to build up—she's denying the past six months, and that hurts. It doesn't hurt like a knife, or a sword, like some people say heartbreak does. He doesn't feel his heart literally break in two. He feels angry, angrier than he's ever felt before, but he's not going to show that weakness yet, not in front of her.

"What about the times you've met me up at the Astronomy Tower, Lucy?" he says, pausing before he carries on, knowing he's caught the attention of everyone currently in the corridor. "What about that time you kissed me? We were talking about soulmates, weren't we—so very un-Slytherin of you—and then you leant over and kissed me."

People have gathered now, and whispers are being directed. It's the famous Lucy Weasley, and to see her break in front of the entire school will be a spectacle to behold.

"You referred to what we had as _love_, Lucy," he reminds her, and her face turns red. "You spent five fucking months of your life in a relationship with me."

"Not here, Lorcan, please." she hisses, grabbing his arm and attempting to take him somewhere private, presumably where she'll attempt to apologise, and try and get him to take her back, talking about the poetic love that she will never show not behind a curtain, because she's a coward.

"The difference between us is that you have a reputation that you never want to lose," Lorcan begins, "and I, well, I have no reputation, and therefore whatever I say, I have nothing to lose. All I can do is watch you fall. "

He doesn't care that he's coming across as a total bastard. He'll care later, probably, but in the heat of the moment he's only feeling the Slytherin he could have been, and not the cool, logical Ravenclaw, although he's certainly cool and calculating as he talks to Lucy.

"Lorcan, _please_." Lucy says, her voice sounding weaker than before, and Lorcan thinks with triumph that he's broken her.

"Your reputation means so much to you, doesn't it, Lucy?" Lorcan taunts. "Pity, really."

"You broke my heart," she whispers, staring at him, trying to conceal the fact that tears threaten to fall from her eyes.

He stares at her, with a stone cold heart. "I didn't need to break your heart. You broke it yourself."

With that, he turns and leaves, determined that he's never going to speak to Lucy Weasley again.

(He only allows himself to cry when he's in his dormitory alone.)

.

No matter how solid things seem in the beginning, they're always going to change. Nothing stays, nothing lasts, and anyone who thinks otherwise is, quite frankly, out of their mind. Lucy and Lorcan were naïve to think that what they had could ever last, with Lucy's focus on her reputation, and Lorcan's drive to always see the stars. Maybe it was a fairytale to begin with, but at sixteen years old, they should have known that no real love story ends with happily ever after.

They sometimes pass each other in the hallways, Lucy with her head bowed. She looks different since Lorcan publicly announced their relationship. Her reputation is still standing, but it's shaky, and it's breaking, and Lorcan hates that he can't even find pleasure in the fact that she's fallen an extremely long way.

They treat each other like strangers now, and it hurts both of them more than they can say. They'd never be able to admit it though—both of them simply have too much pride.

* * *

uhm, that was a little longer than the epilogue. ;) also, I know it's in a different tense, but all of the rest of the chapters will be in present tense. and it's not beta'd, so excuse mistakes. and sorry for the long wait! :)

Thanks for reading - please don't favourite without a review. :)


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